If you’re researching ways to attract an audience for your webinars, the constant advice is to promote on social media.
And there’s good reason—no matter who your audience is, chances are you can find them on social media. According to a recent Emarsys study, approximately 3.2 billion people worldwide use some form of social media.
But what if your social media following isn’t that big? Everyone starts somewhere. Here are some ideas for building an audience on social.
Claim your business name on your social media profiles. Establish profiles on all the social media platforms where you plan to promote yourself—YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more—and claim a URL that’s the same as your business name (or as close as possible).
Each platform lets you customize your URL for your profile—and it’s best to do that as soon as you can, so you’re easy to find and your branding is consistent.
Get a professional look. Your visuals matter. It can be worth the investment to hire a pro to design your cover graphics or take professional photos. Use these across all platforms, so your branding stays cohesive and your look is recognizable.
Make connections with thought leaders. One way to build your own fan base is to bring in people with an established audience—the same one you’re trying to reach.
Attracting a prominent person in your industry for a guest blog post, interview, co-webinar, or other partnership can be a great achievement—but you can also gain more consistent traction by targeting people who are the next step up from you.
Use paid advertising. Paid advertising can help you build an initial following fairly quickly. It’s faster than unpaid social efforts, and it helps you target a highly specific audience.
Stay consistent. There have been lots of articles written about the optimal frequency of posting on different social media platforms. This will vary depending on your audience and industry, and some experimentation is in order.
But the important thing is to stay current and consistent—so people visiting your page know that you’re active.
Participate in the conversation. There are plenty of conversations happening on various social media sites that attract people who are in your target audience. Contributing to those conversations is a great way to get in front of them.
The method is slightly different depending on your platform. On Twitter and Instagram, do searches for hashtags that are relevant to your industry. On Facebook and LinkedIn, join discussion groups and like pages that focus on topics you cover. Watch what people
are talking about and chime in when you can.
Building an audience on social media takes some time and persistence—but it’s worth it to take the time. You don’t need a very big following to market your webinar to, as long as the following you have is engaged and interested. If you’re current and part of the
conversation, your followers will find you.
